Charmouth had been one of the Roman stations and the scene of the fiercest battles between the Saxons and the Danes in 833 and 841, in the reigns of Egbert and Ethelwolf, in which the Danes appeared to have been victorious, as they were constantly being reinforced by fellow-countrymen arriving by sea.  But these were practically forgotten, the memories of them having been replaced in more modern times by events connected with the Civil War and with the wanderings of “Prince Charles,” the fugitive King Charles II.  What a weary and anxious time he must have had during the nineteen days he spent in the county of Dorset, in fear of his enemies and watching for a ship by which he could escape from England, while soldiers were scouring the county to find him!

[Illustration:  HOUSE WHERE KING CHARLES LODGED IN CHARMOUTH.]

He wrote a Narrative, in which some of his adventures were recorded, and from which it appeared that after the Battle of Worcester and his escape to Boscobel, where the oak tree in which he hid himself was still to be seen, he disguised himself as a manservant and rode before a lady named Mrs. Lane, in whose employ he was supposed to be, while Lord Wilton rode on in front.  They arrived at a place named Trent, a village on the borders of Somerset and Dorset, and stayed at the house of Frank Wyndham, whom Charles described in his Narrative as a “very honest man,” and who concealed him in “an old well-contrived secret place.”  When they arrived some of the soldiers from Worcester were in the village, and Charles wrote that he heard “one trooper telling the people that he had killed me, and that that was my buff coat he had on,” and the church bells were ringing and bonfires lighted to celebrate the victory.  The great difficulty was to get a ship, for they had tried to get one at Bristol, but failed.  In a few days’ time, however, Wyndham ventured to go into Lyme Regis, and there found a boat about to sail for St. Malo, and got a friend to arrange terms with the owner to take a passenger “who had a finger in the pye at Worcester.”  It was arranged that the ship should wait outside Charmouth in the Charmouth Roads, and that the passenger should be brought out in a small boat about midnight on the day arranged.  Charles then reassumed his disguise as a male servant named William Jackson, and rode before Mrs. Connisby, a cousin of Wyndham’s, while Lord Wilton again rode on in front.  On arrival at Charmouth, rooms were taken at the inn, and a reliable man was engaged who at midnight was to be at the appointed place with his boat to take the Prince to the ship.